The networking infrastructure of a “smart” city or urbanized area may be called upon to support the task requirements of multiple end users such as a plethora of municipal, governmental, and public safety agencies. As these agencies execute various intra- and inter-agency tasks and missions, the networking infrastructure should be capable of supporting the communication needs of these tasks and missions. For example, modern packet-based communication systems strive to attain and maintain desirable network-level metrics in terms of bandwidth, delay, jitter, and probability of loss.
These metrics are often specified in terms of a desired Quality-of-Service (QoS). Transmissions may be organized and network resources provisioned to support a limited number of classes of service. For example, traffic-engineered Multiprotocol Label Switching (MPLS) may be employed to support a limited number of classes of service such as best-effort, constant-bit-rate, or variable-bit-rate. MPLS is a technique for directing data from one network node to the next based on short path labels rather than long network addresses, thereby avoiding complex lookups in a routing table. The labels identify virtual links (paths) between distant nodes rather than the endpoints themselves.
Depending on the intended end use of the information that is transported by the packets, improving performance at the network level in terms of QoS may not necessarily improve utility or value for end users. For example, several tasks may utilize video feeds which consume significant amounts of bandwidth. Illustrative tasks that are associated with video feeds include traffic control, safety surveillance, utility grid monitoring, and assisting first responders. Thus, several ongoing agency tasks may require the use of bandwidth-demanding video feeds collected from a large number of cameras that have been installed throughout a city. However, a particular video feed could comprise, for example, a scene of an empty street containing no activity of interest. Hence, the specific feed would be of low value, even though significant network resources are consumed to transport it. Dedicating precious resources to support a low-value task means that the network may lack additional resources to support contemporaneous high-value activities such as video feeds from a traffic accident, the scene of a crime, or a chemical spill. In order to support the information needs of tasks, activities, and missions in a smart city, there is a need for the underlying communication networks to become responsive to the needs of end-users as well as the nature of the tasks, activities, and missions that are to be executed, so as to increase the overall value of the information that is delivered to the end users.